It has been a busy week for WordPress and all the updates and patches going around.    For those on our MySLP managed service, sit back and relax.  You’re good.    While you may wait a little longer for some new features and a couple of minor patches you are not going to be affected by software updates.   You’re good.

For WordPress users we’ve been busy chasing down some notable functionality issues with Store Locator Plus and the Add Ons for WordPress since WordPress 4.9 and 4.9.1 hit the update queue on your sites.

Store Locator Plus for WordPress 4.9.1

Any time WordPress puts out a major release we get a slew of new support requests.   4.9 was not exception.   People that have put off updating their site tend to “do everything at once”.  When you are updating a complex system with software from potentially dozens of different companies there are bound to be some problems.    We’ve been busy squashing bugs reported in our software and guiding people towards solutions that are caused by other elements in their software stack.

While WordPress 4.9 does not have “breaking changes” to WordPress itself, we do recommend updating to get the latest security features.  For those staying on WordPress 4.8.2 you can read about the breaking changes in WordPress 4.8.2 that forced users to upgrade Store Locator Plus.

PHP 5.3 Compatibility

As of Store Locator Plus 4.9 we no longer support PHP version 5.2.   We are now properly checking the WordPress version and disabling Store Locator Plus if you are not on at least version 5.3 of PHP.

According to PHP history, version 5.2 was officially at end-of-life, no longer maintained by PHP, in January 2011.  Version 5.3 is marginally better with end-of-life in August 2014.  WordPress recommends PHP version 7.  We do too, but at the very least you should be on PHP 5.6.

In the meantime we’ve fixed some code that was introduced that only works on PHP 5.4 so we can maintain our PHP 5.3 compatibility.

Non-English Blank Settings Tabs

We finally located and squashed the bug that caused some non-English sites to lose settings tab content when switching sub tabs on the Store Locator Plus | Settings interface.

On a related note, if you are using SLP on a non-English site please read our documentation on how you can translate SLP to your language.  If the language files are not at least 93% complete WordPress will not provide translated text on our admin interfaces. This is handled at Translate.WordPress.Org.

Debugging

When an update generates the dreaded White Screen of Doom (WSOD) we often ask people to enable the WordPress Debug Log so we can quickly find and fix code errors in our plugin.   In version 4.9.1 you can now enable “late loading” WordPress debugging from the Store Locator Plus admin pages (assuming you can at least get to those, which you often can) without having to edit the wp-config file.    While it does not catch all errors it will cover 95% of the Store Locator Plus code base during run time.

You can enable debugging via the Enable WP Debug under Settings | General | Admin | Messages | Enable WP DEBUG.

This often generates warnings and messages on your web pages so we do not recommend doing this at peak hours for your site.   In fact we recommend you use a hosting service, like SiteGround’s GoGeek service, that provides “one-click” staging sites that are an exact replica of your live site.    Managed WordPress hosts are rarely more expensive than other hosts; we recommend you consider switching to a host that provides staging services when your hosting contract comes up for renewal.

On The Radar

This patch is not the end of our punch list for this month.

PATCH: Location Page Export | Bulk Actions Not Working – We know about an issue we are still trying to replicate where the Power add on and WordPress 4.9 are colluding to not finish loading the Store Locator Plus | Locations pages.  That means the JavaScript for that page does not load completely and lots of weird things happen.  This is new since Power 4.9 and WordPress 4.9.   Given the problems WordPress has had with JavaScript we are not 100% certain who broke what.  We are still investigating and hope to have Power 4.9.1 out in a few days with a fix.

PATCH: Power Tag Search Not Working – we have been able to reproduce this problem and are tracking it down for a 4.9.2 release of SLP or 4.9.1 of Power.   Both updates should be out within a week.

FEATURE: Add On Auto Update – while we try to “go by the book”,  following WordPress Best Practices, their plugin development guide, and the WordPress Core code style guide that allows us to be contributor to WP Core there are times when you have to “be creative”.   WordPress update notifications for Store Locator Plus add ons have been getting worse with each release of WordPress.   We are finding many sites now get notifications weeks after our updates have been published for our paid add ons.    We are working on a new custom update notification system to automatically download and install the latest add ons for Store Locator Plus when the base plugin is updated and no longer compatible with an addon.  We are hoping to get this feature out in the 4.9.2 release if possible.

Having issues?  Please use the support forums as a first line of communication as it helps others with a similar issue see answers we post.  If you cannot post there you can send us an email but email does not show up in the dev’s Slack Channel feed like forum posts do.

Whether posting in the forum or sending email, make sure you post the exact URL for your locator page and copy the plugin environment from under Store Locator Plus | Info | Plugin Environment on the site that is having the issue.  Without BOTH pieces of information it takes us a LOT longer to figure out what may be happening on your site.   It also helps to provide us with step-by-step instructions to reproduce the problem and see what you are seeing, as in “Go to this page <url here>, type in 29464 as the address, search.   I expect to see store A, B, C and instead I see store B, and C only.”

Example Plugin Environment Detail

Did you know on MacOS you can get a screen shot by holding down the command key + shift + 5?   It is a great way to show us your plugin environment.

Stop worrying about software patches

For those on MySLP, you don’t have to worry about any of this.  Let us handle the software updates while you get back to business.